On Vietnam Service, CBS Pounds Republicans & Excuses Democrats

Dan Rather and CBS News have delivered a "tilted history of coverage of baby-boomer Vietnam service," pounding at Republicans Dan Quayle and George W. Bush, while defending and excusing the records of Democrats Al Gore, Bill Clinton and John Kerry, and "that causes conservatives to roll their eyes when Dan Rather insists that his critics should be scorned as 'partisan political operatives,'" the MRC's Tim Graham observed in a Wednesday piece for National Review Online in which Graham provided a review of CBS's news judgments over the past 16 years.

An excerpt from "Red Flags Over West 57th: CBS has a stilted history of covering presidential candidates and Vietnam," a September 15 National Review Online piece by Graham, Director of Media Analysis at the MRC:

....One of the red flags on this scandal for everyone outside CBS is the network's track record on investigating the military records of other candidates for president. In 2000, CBS had next to zero interest in Al Gore's mysterious history during his brief service in Vietnam, including his discussions with old CBS nemesis Gen. William Westmoreland.

In 1999, Newsweek's Bill Turque found a Gore friend who said Gore "met twice that spring with the former commander of U.S. forces in South Vietnam to discuss Gore's options. Westmoreland guaranteed no cushy deals, according to Gore's friend, but left him with one sweeping assurance: 'I believe he will be watched,' the general said. 'He will be cared for.'" Later, Turque added: "The two met during the general's visit to [Fort] Rucker in 1970, and Gore has intimated over the years that the general encouraged him to go. According to Michael Zibart, a Nashville friend, Gore said that Westmoreland told him he 'would be making a grave error if he didn't serve in Vietnam.'"

CBS made an enormous deal out of Dan Quayle's connections to power in Indiana during the 1988 campaign, and is now putting its reputation on the line about George W. Bush's connections to power in Texas. How did CBS explore Al Gore's going straight to the top of the Vietnam command structure to make connections? They didn't. Put "Gore" and "Westmoreland" into the Nexis file of CBS transcripts, and you get "no documents." When 60 Minutes profiled Gore on December 5, 1999, Lesley Stahl merely mentioned in passing: "Everybody expected him to follow his father's footsteps into politics, but he rebelled. After a tour of duty in Vietnam, he worked for four years as a reporter at the Nashville Tennessean. During that time he also enrolled in Divinity School here at Vanderbilt University." She then asked him about religion.

The main reason for Vietnam mentions in CBS's Gore coverage in 2000 was speculation over whether Gore would select "decorated Vietnam veteran" John Kerry as his running mate. In a Gore biography during the Democratic convention that year, reporter Richard Schlesinger skimmed over the subject: "Gore served five months in Vietnam as a combat journalist. But those who knew him best wondered whether his true motivation was to shield his father from critics during a bitter re-election campaign....It didn't help his father in any case. After 30 years, the senior Gore lost his coveted seat in Washington. To this day, Gore feels his father's opposition to the war led to his defeat."

In 1992, Dan Rather saw nothing but smears when a document emerged on February 12, a letter Bill Clinton wrote to his soon-to-be-forsaken ROTC commander Eugene Holmes that said "thank you...for saving me from the draft." CBS was not happy. "Bill Clinton says President Bush's 1988 Willie Horton crowd is smearing him with new campaign dirty tricks," Dan Rather said over the show's opening music. Later, he repeated: "In the presidential campaign, Democrat Bill Clinton says Bush-Quayle re-election forces are using a smear campaign to constantly raise questions about his past." CBS had the most inaccurate story that night, referring to Clinton's blaming the Republicans for leaking the letter four times, and carrying four accusatory Clinton sound bites. ABC, CNN, and NBC all correctly reported that night that the man who saved the letter, Clinton Jones, had sent the letter to ABC News, not to Republican officials. CBS had the greatest disparity among networks on draft-dodging allegations in the first ten days of the Quayle scandal in 1988 versus the Clinton scandal in 1992 -- 18 stories on Quayle, compared with just two on Clinton.

When the Los Angeles Times revealed on September 2, 1992, that Clinton's Uncle Raymond had finagled a Naval Reserve slot for Clinton, delayed his physical for nearly eleven months, and met with Sen. William Fulbright, Dan Rather's show only aired one perfunctory Evening News story.

Even this year, when 60 Minutes profiled Kerry on January 25, Ed Bradley touted Kerry's medals and brushed over Kerry's wild and unsubstantiated 1971 Senate testimony by noting: "It's still emotional after all these years. Vietnam is something that just doesn't leave you." Kerry said: "It's young people dying young for the wrong reasons, because leaders don't do the things that they should do to protect them." Bradley replied: "Do you see a parallel with Iraq?"

It's this tilted history of coverage of baby-boomer Vietnam service -- pound the Republicans, defend the Democrats -- that causes conservatives to roll their eyes when Dan Rather insists that his critics should be scorned as "partisan political operatives." As if he and his CBS colleagues haven't behaved an awful lot like partisan political operatives themselves, with their "news judgment" over the years.

alt

Navy Contradicts Kerry on Release of Military Records
By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
September 16, 2004

(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. Navy released documents Wednesday contradicting claims by Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry that all of his available military records have been released.

The Navy, responding to a Freedom of Information Act request from the legal watchdog group Judicial Watch, also referred interested parties to Kerry's campaign web site for government military documents.

Navy Personnel Command FOIA Officer Dave German wrote in an e-mail to Judicial Watch that the Navy "withheld thirty-one pages of documents from the responsive military personnel service records as we were not provided a release authorization."

A "release authorization" would have to come from Kerry filling out and signing a Standard Form 180, something he has yet to do. A Standard Form 180 would authorize the complete release of all his military records. Judicial Watch filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in August to obtain Kerry's military records.

The official U.S. Navy response was received by Judicial Watch on Wednesday, the same day that Kerry told syndicated radio and MSNBC TV host Don Imus that "We've posted my military records that they sent to me, or were posted on my website. You can go to my website, and all my -- you know, the documents are there."

When Imus pressed Kerry as to whether all of his documents were in fact included on the campaign website, Kerry responded, "To the best of my knowledge. I think some of the medical stuff may still be out there. We're trying to get it.

"We released everything that they (the Navy) initially sent me," he added.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said the Navy's correspondence confirms that Kerry has not been forthright in releasing his military files.

"It's written confirmation from the U.S. Navy that there are additional documents from Kerry's service record that have yet to be made publicly available," Fitton told CNSNews.com.

Fitton called the Kerry campaign's contention that all of the candidate's military files have been released, "wrong."

"They (the Kerry campaign) are either ignorant or misleading us. The simple solution is to authorize the release of all records related to his service," Fitton said.

German in a letter dated September 15, also referred Judicial Watch to Kerry's campaign website for more information on Kerry's military records.

"Numerous responsive U.S. Navy service record documents, as well as service record documents not subject to disclosure requirements under the FOIA, may be accessed at" the Kerry campaign's website applying to his military records, wrote German.

"Right now we are in the 'Alice in Wonderland' situation, where the U.S. Navy is telling us to go to a campaign Internet site to get government FOIA documents," Fitton said.

"I am not aware of any other instance where [a government agency] told us to go to a political website for documents," he added. "It's not a reliable repository of government documents."

In additional correspondence with Judicial Watch dated Sept. 15, the Navy stated that it did not have a copy of Kerry's Discharge Certificate (DD Form 256N), adding that the Navy did not keep files of the certificate in its records.

German wrote in a letter dated Sept. 15, "A copy of an honorable discharge certificate (DD256N) is not placed in the U.S. Navy Service record when issued."

Jerome Corsi, co-author of the best-selling book "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry," told CNSNews.com the he was "surprised" the Navy did not have a copy of Kerry's discharge file.

"That means [Kerry's] got it," Corsi said. "It goes against his contention that he has released everything that is in his possession, because certainly that form is in his possession."

Corsi believes that the Navy's official response proves that "it's Kerry who is blocking the release of the [military] documents and nobody else."

"What's Senator Kerry got to hide?" Corsi asked. "By not releasing these files, he is creating the impression that there is something there he doesn't want anybody to see. What is it?"

Judicial Watch is also awaiting the U.S. Navy's response to its inquiry regarding Kerry's "Silver Star with combat V." The citation appears in Kerry's DD214 military form on his website, but according to military officials, no such medal exists.

"Kerry's record is incorrect. The Navy has never issued a 'combat V' to anyone for a Silver Star," said a Naval official to reporter Thomas Lipscomb in an article for the August 27th Chicago Sun Times.

According to the Sun Times article, "Naval regulations do not allow for the use of a 'combat V' for the Silver Star, the third-highest decoration the Navy awards. None of the other services has ever granted a Silver Star 'combat V,' either."

See Related Articles:
Kerry Blamed for Viet Vets Being Dubbed 'Atrocity Committing Monsters' POW Say (Sept. 10, 2004)
Kerry, in 1971, Admitted Writing Combat Reports (Aug. 26, 2004)
FBI Files Show Kerry Met With Communists More Than Once (June 4, 2004)
Kerry's Meeting With Communists Violated US Law, Says Author (May 20, 2004)
Kerry Lying About Anti-War Past, Supporter Alleges (March 18, 2004)

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